Around 1,000 Congress workers marched nearly six kilometre on Monday to present a memorandum to the district collector in central Gujarat city of Nadiad. The memorandum was prepared at the end of an one-week exercise wherein Congress workers reached out to the residents to understand the local issues they have been facing.
A brainchild of Rajya Sabha MP Shaktisinh Gohil, who was appointed Gujarat unit president of the party two months ago, the Jan Adhikar Padyatra will be taken out in 33 districts and eight municipal corporations areas over a period of three months.
Coming ahead of next year’s crucial Lok Sabha elections, the Padyatra is aimed at reconnecting with the masses after the party’s lowest ever tally of 17 seats in assembly elections in December 2022. The party has even failed to get official recognition for the opposition leader’s post.
Winning even a single seat in 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be an achievement for the Congress as the BJP had bagged all the 26 seats from Gujarat in the last two elections.
“Being the opposition party, it is our duty to raise people's voices,” Gohil told THE WEEK. He said the Congress is appealing to all those who have left the party and now have a change of heart to rejoin.
He said they are also appealing to BJP 'page presidents' to join the Congress and give the party a chance. “We are telling them that they have been used by the BJP,” he said.
'Page presidents' and 'page committee members' are part of a system devised by the BJP in Gujarat wherein party workers are given responsibility for each page of the electoral roll and remain in touch with the electorate of the area.
Before taking over as the state party chief, Gohil along with Congress workers had walked a stretch of over eight kilometres from the Sabarmati Ashram to the party’s headquarters in Ahmedabad.
Congress workers will be reaching out to the masses in all the 33 districts and eight municipal corporation areas before the yatra is taken out in the respective areas.
State Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said it is a unique concept. He said that during the yatras, the party is keeping a desk – Haath se Haath Jodo (Joining Hands) – and the people who like the party’s ideology can join the party.
Ahmedabad-based political analyst Vidyut Joshi observed that it is a good beginning (the yatra), but it may not fully revive the party.
According to him, it is necessary to get into the details of what ails the Congress. Joshi said any party needs young blood for it to survive for a long time.
The Congress started facing the dearth of young blood after the Seva Dal became almost defunct in the 1980s. There needs to be indoctrination and the views of a person are formed when he/she is young, Joshi said.
